Desiderat
by hoidn
Summary: The man hath penance done, And penance more will do.


**A/N:** the summary is taken from 'the rime of the ancient mariner' by samuel taylor coleridge. events here diverge from canon after 5x03.

* * *

The hail was really the final straw.

Inside the cab of the Bronco a cold silence that had nothing to do with the temperature resonated beneath the pounding of ice against metal and glass. Walt would've been hard pressed to hear Vic over the noise of the hailstorm even if she was yelling at him, but at least the hot flare of her anger and impatience would be familiar. Her new quietness disconcerted him.

Three days of heavy unrelenting rain had turned most of Absaroka into a quagmire. Flash flooding had hit the north-west part of town and sandbags were the newest fashion in garden accessories. Dead Horse Creek had flooded and closed a section of I-90 yesterday, while tourists were straggling out of the Bighorns in soggy droves.

It was a deluge of Biblical proportions and Lucian had been enjoying the opportunity for ark jokes too much for Walt's taste.

Certainly, nothing was the least bit funny right now.

He and Vic were bogged in over-saturated ground that had seemed to simply suck the Bronco's front tires into itself like wet concrete. The windshield wipers had become increasingly useless against the force and volume of water being flung at them on the drive out; even with its weight and 4-wheel drive, the big truck had been having trouble getting traction on the road. Walt was used to the occasional oddity Wyoming's weather could throw at him, but even he had been startled into a swerve when the first golf-ball-sized hailstone crashed against the windshield.

Now they were stuck and they both knew who was to blame. Vic wouldn't even be here if not for him. She'd been getting ready to head out for the day when the call had come in. He'd known it and he'd looked at her and said, "Let's go," anyway.

For a moment he'd really thought she'd refuse. She would have, once upon a time, or at least made her vocal displeasure known. But this new Vic had stared at him blankly for a few seconds, then grabbed her jacket and walked out ahead of him without a word.

That was the instant Walt fully grasped the ramifications of his recent and hasty decisions. They weren't even so much decisions as reactions, he reflected, and wished with all his heart that he could take them back, do them over, have a little more time to think it all through. But he'd already had a whole hell of a lot of time to think things through, hadn't he? Look where that had gotten him.

As swiftly as it had begun the hailstorm ended. In its wake, the dull roar of the rain sounded almost gentle.

Next to him, Vic was lit up by the screen of her phone.

"Anything?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

She didn't even turn her head. "No signal. And we're almost out of daylight."

"There's a Forest Service cabin about a mile down the access road. We should be able to make it there before dark."

"Okay."

The Vic of old would've offered some colorful remarks about what he could do with his mile walk in the pouring rain, but this Vic simply accepted what he told her and began preparing for their trek.

Walt briefly considered trying to knock himself out on the steering wheel.

Since the incident with Tamar, Vic was professional and efficient, polite and cordial in a distant sort of way. She did the job as well as she ever had, but she behaved as though she was just an employee and he was just her boss. She didn't question his orders, didn't push for more information or argue with him about procedure. His world had developed an uncomfortable tilt and it felt wrong. Everything felt wrong now.

She pulled an evidence baggie from her pocket and sealed her cell phone inside it. "You got anything you want to keep dry? That'll fit in one of these," she added before he could work in a smartass reply or a joke or something that might make her smile at him the way she used to.

That was how this would've gone not so long ago. He would've said something wry and she'd have come back with something off-color or flirty or both. And it would've been something they shared, those extra layers of what they were saying underneath the surface. They used to play with words a lot like that together.

Walt couldn't remember when it was he stopped playing. Or why. But he knew this gulf between them was one of his own making. What he didn't know was how to get across it to where she stood on the other side.

While Vic scoured the Bronco for anything useful to take with them, Walt radioed in to the station with an update on their situation. By the time he was done, Vic had assembled a small collection of items including two half-full bottles of water, the first aid kit, a flashlight he hadn't known he had, and some road flares. With minimal discussion, they divided the load between them and set out.

It was a grueling mile. Visibility was limited to the ground under his feet and maybe a few feet beyond. The rain lashed painfully where it struck the exposed skin of his face and hands. Debris and hailstones littered the road and it was easy to get caught on branches or roll an ankle. The packed dirt had dissolved into slippery mud, pockmarked by gouges where the top layers had been washed away. Walking off the access road was even less of an option: the ground was so sodden that each step felt like trying to pull his boots out of quicksand.

Ahead of him, Vic slipped and went down twice but pushed herself up both times before he could even try to help. Walt landed on his ass once as well, but he was so wet and cold by then that the pain barely registered.

The last fifty yards were the worst. So little light penetrated through the clouds and the trees that it could've been the middle of the night. The flashlight beam seemed to be swallowed by the rain. He navigated by memory more than sight, feeling a weightless sense of relief when he almost smacked face first into the wall of the cabin. In another small piece of mercy, he found that the combination he had for the door lock was still current, which meant they didn't have to try to break in.

Inside, the flashlight redeemed itself, illuminating the thicker darkness of the cabin's interior. The previous occupants had obviously left in something of a hurry, probably notified by rangers of the need to evacuate. Walt found the Coleman lantern with its fuel tank still about two thirds full. Enough firewood was stacked by the stove to keep them going through until morning if they were careful. They'd have to sleep in the main room to stay warm but they could drag the mattresses from the bunk beds onto the floor.

And at least they wouldn't have to worry about dehydration, he thought in grim amusement.

With the lantern lit and casting its wide glow from the kitchen table, Walt switched off the flashlight and moved back to where Vic stood by the door. She'd shucked her outer layer of jacket and boots, but was still thoroughly soaked and muddied. So was he. Their jeans and shirts dripped from hems and cuffs; a tiny river ran from Vic's ponytail down her back. Puddles had already begun forming where they stood and wet bootprints marked the path Walt had taken from the door to the lantern and back.

While he worked off his coat and his boots, she stripped off her duty shirt and wrung it out through the door. He resolutely didn't notice the way her nipples pressed hard and tight against her undershirt.

Walt was very aware that they couldn't stay in their wet clothes all night, which meant at some point he was going to be faced with Vic as close to naked as she'd ever been in his presence. The thought brought with it an unwelcome pulse of desire and an equally unwelcome burst of panic. There'd be no way to conceal any effect the sight of her might—would surely—have on him. In this case the cold would probably be a blessing. Still, he wished for towels, for blankets, for dry clothes and maybe a parka or two. The more layers the better. Complete darkness was probably too much to ask.

"I'll, uh, get the fire going," he said.

"I'll check the other rooms, see if there's anything else we can use," Vic replied, business-like and competent, the first words she'd spoken since leaving the Bronco.

After so long a silence they warmed him like a shot of whiskey on an empty stomach. He missed her voice these days, its bright river of sound as expressive as her face. He missed her clever asides and quick wit, her insights and commentary, the rare glimpses of herself she granted him. He missed _her_ and he'd listen to her recite her grocery list right now if she'd tell it to him, just to hear her speak, just to see the shapes her lovely mouth made.

"Okay," he said and concentrated his attention on the stove instead of staring at her like an infatuated adolescent. He began by sweeping the ash buildup from the firebox, then arranged some kindling and set it alight. _Be professional,_ he instructed himself sternly. _You have no right to anything else._

Vic's socked feet squelched faintly as she walked, announcing her return just before she spoke again. "Well, it's no Sheraton, but I found a couple of sheets and a blanket on one of the bunks. I guess the people who were staying here forgot about them."

Walt didn't think he was imagining the hint of relief in her voice. It rang like a bell in his own chest. "That's good. If we hang our clothes near the stove they should be dry by morning."

"Yeah." She cleared her throat. "So, the thing I didn't find was a bathroom."

"There isn't one."

"You're joking."

He added a couple of smaller logs to the firebox then turned his head to face her. "No electricity, no running water. There's a vault toilet out back."

Her stare was blank and flat. "I have to go back outside to pee?"

"Sorry." He really was.

"Fuck me. Is there at least toilet paper out there?"

"Maybe," he offered. Chances were good that the former occupants of the cabin had left that behind, too.

"Jesus." Vic pinched the bridge of her nose. After a deep breath, she opened the first aid kit and rummaged through it, taking out a package of sterile gauze.

"You'll, uh, need the combination for the lock." He recited it to her, studying the tense set of her jaw. "Want me to come with you?"

"I really don't," she snapped, then grabbed the flashlight, shoved her feet into her boots, and strode out into the rain.

He couldn't blame her.

Once the fire was burning well, Walt found a plastic bucket in the cupboard of cleaning supplies and rinsed it out as best he could in the rain before setting it down to collect water. Back inside, he dragged two of the mattresses from the bunk beds and laid them side-by-side in front of the stove. The blanket was narrow, sized for a single bed like the sheets, but he spread it sideways across the mattresses. It would help to provide some warmth and protection from their vinyl exteriors at least.

Vic didn't seem any angrier when she returned, and she tossed the unopened package of gauze back into the first aid kit, so there must have been toilet paper. Walt sent up a silent thanks to the previous occupants for their forgetfulness, then excused himself to make a trek of his own. Ordinarily he wouldn't have bothered with the vault toilet just to take a leak, but it seemed somehow disrespectful to have that advantage over Vic tonight.

When he got back to the cabin she was kneeling by the stove, squeezing the water from her dripping hair. Even darkened by the rain it glowed golden, and in her white undershirt she seemed an otherworldly beacon of light in the dim room. Walt stood, momentarily transfixed.

"We should probably get out of these wet clothes now," she said without looking at him.

"Right." He shook himself and picked up one of the sheets. "I'll go, um, in the other room."

"I'll let you know when I'm done."

Walt didn't bother with the flashlight. The sleeping area was dark but his eyes had adjusted enough to let him navigate around the looming shapes of the bunk beds. He stripped quickly in the cold, already beginning to shiver, and wound his sheet around himself as best he could, toga-style. There wasn't a lot of it to work with, and it clung to his damp skin, but he was grateful not to have to sit in his wet undershorts all night.

When Vic called to him from the main room he took his resolve and his waterlogged clothes in hand. He would remember that she was the wronged party here. She deserved his respect and consideration, not his inappropriate lust. With that fixed firmly in his mind, he walked back into the light.

The pummeling rain outside was dissolving the world's solid existence; in front of him, Vic stood as the still center at the eye of his personal storm.

Her shadowy curves were backlit by the lantern and the flames from the stove's small window. The sheet that felt so ludicrous on him was made gauzy and ethereal on her. She'd somehow managed to wrap it in such a way that it covered her to mid-thigh, with the remaining length passing between her legs and then up to drape around her shoulders like a shawl. Her wet hair spread across it, leaving damp patches where the pale fabric thinned to translucency.

Walt tried to avert his gaze somewhere innocuous but even looking at her bare feet seemed intimate and illicit. Her toes, with their nails painted a pale, shimmering pink, charmed him. He wanted to press his lips against the elegant arches of her insteps and the sweeping rise of her Achilles tendons.

Motionless, entranced, he must have made some unconscious sound. Vic glanced up, meeting his eyes, and the shock of the connection boomed like thunder through all the spaces of his body.

"I left those for you," she said after a moment.

Only then did Walt notice the chairs set on one side of the stove. Her clothes lay across two of them and the other two sat empty. He caught a glimpse of something small and white and quickly looked away. The sight of a woman's underwear shouldn't make his heart race and his skin flush, not at his age, but some part of him that was still a sixteen year old boy was electrified at knowing those were _panties_, those were _Vic's panties_, and she was _naked_ under that sheet.

"Thanks," he said indistinctly, overheating beneath the chilled surface of his skin.

He carried his sodden bundle around the perimeter of the mattresses and applied himself to hanging his clothing over the chairs with great care and precision, determined to stultify his feelings by a concentrated force of will.

Rummaging through the kitchen cupboards, Vic let out a triumphant little "ha!" and Walt looked up to find her holding an unopened bag of corn chips and a half eaten bag of marshmallows.

"Dinner is served," she pronounced, offering him the first genuine smile she'd worn in what felt like days.

Something loosened in him with the rise of her lips; some piercing shard fell harmlessly away and eased a wound he hadn't been aware of. Sitting on the mattresses, they shared their meal of corn chips, marshmallows, and water in the kind of peacefulness that only exists at the heart of some great and forceful noise.

"Too bad they didn't leave us chocolate and graham crackers too. We could've made s'mores," Vic said after a while.

She had powdered sugar from the marshmallows dusted at the side of her mouth. Walt imagined brushing it off with his thumb; he imagined his tongue flicking out to lick it from her skin.

His body signaled its approval of the idea and he shifted, flushing with embarrassed arousal. Then she began licking her fingers with delicate little swipes of her tongue and he lurched to his feet, propelled by a desperate urge to fling himself out into the deluge. He busied himself with unnecessary tasks to mask his nerves — collecting their small amount of trash into a pile, fiddling with the damper on the stove — while silently berating himself. This inability to control his physical reactions was becoming ridiculous. He was a grown man for god's sake.

Finally, his limited options exhausted, Walt was forced to sit down again.

"Did you do this kind of thing a lot when Cady was growing up?" Vic asked. "Outdoorsy shit?"

A breath of laughter escaped him. "We'd go camping a few times each summer, usually just me and Cady. Martha would come along every now and then but she wasn't what you'd call enthusiastic." The recollection made him smile as he often did when he talked or thought of Martha these days. It no longer hurt the way it used to, something he'd once believed was impossible. The hard knot of scar tissue tangled around the memories had softened and unraveled enough for them to be sweet again. "What about you?"

Vic snorted. "The Morettis aren't exactly the camping type. My father would've had to pry himself away from the job, for starters. I think we went on a grand total of one family vacation when I was growing up and it was a special kind of hell that none of us ever wanted to repeat."

"Fair enough" was the most diplomatic response Walt could think to offer.

He shifted slightly to alleviate the discomfort of his still-healing wound, which made itself known at odd times. It was a subtle movement but he could tell Vic noticed. When she didn't say anything he felt an odd pang of disappointment. Not long ago she would've been pestering him to take better care of himself; her pointed lack of interest now was a stark reminder of how far it was between there and here.

She cleared her throat. "So how's Dr Monaghan coping with everything?"

The sincerity of the question made something in Walt's stomach twist. He considered the two slightly stilted conversations he'd had with Donna since her kidnapping: one at the hospital, one at his cabin when she'd come over to pick up her clothes. "She seems okay."

"That's good."

"How is, uh, how's Eamonn?" he forced himself to ask. From the corner of his eye he saw Vic shrug.

"I wouldn't know. He was smart enough to jump clear of the Terror train wreck."

Walt didn't want to feel the relief that coursed through him, he didn't want to be that selfish, yet she didn't sound upset or bitter or really anything at all. She could have been talking about the weather.

"You're not a train wreck, Vic."

"Evidence says otherwise." Her voice remained mild, matter-of-fact. "I find a guy who's actually into me, who's smart, funny, and not even a little bit stalkery, and I manage to screw it up in less than forty-eight hours. What else would you call it?"

_Forty-eight hours?_

Walt turned his head slightly to look at her. She was staring straight into the fire and it painted her skin in pinks and burnished gold. The hair at her temple and around her ear had dried into a wispy sort of halo framing her face. She looked heartbreakingly beautiful and he wanted to kiss her, to touch her, to beg her forgiveness for not being strong enough or brave enough to handle this thing between them.

Instead he looked back at the fire and let himself marinate in the potent mixture of self-loathing and regret he'd been brewing since he first began to comprehend what an enormous fool he was.

"Are you, um, okay?" he asked.

"It's not like it was some big love affair, Walt." Vic's tone was gently chiding, as though he was being particularly dense and ought to have known it. "We fucked a couple times and then he bailed. That's all."

Walt felt like he might be sick. _We fucked a couple times._ Being aware in a theoretical way that Vic was a sexually active woman was very different from being confronted by the fact of that sex. Again.

All he could think to say by way of comfort were useless cliches: he's not good enough for you; you'll find someone else. But no one was good enough for Vic. And the thought of her finding someone else made his guts cramp with a cold, hollow ache.

_Please don't find somebody else._ That was what he wanted to tell her, knowing exactly how hypocritical it would be.

If he did, she would probably punch him.

If she did, he would definitely deserve it.

. . .

.

They had nothing else to do but try to sleep. For Walt, the hours passed slowly in fitful stops and starts. Time after time he woke with a racing pulse from dreams that slipped away too quickly to recall. Only the constants of Vic's breathing, the fire, and the endless falling rain tethered him to what was real.

It was after midnight when something different woke him, a palpable absence. The rain had stopped. He lay on the thin foam mattress with the sound of his own breath overloud in his ears. Beyond the radius of warmth from the stove, cold air was piling up like cumulonimbus, threatening to spill. The temperature had dropped noticeably.

Vic lay curled in a luminous tangle of limbs next to him. Firelight flickered over her skin, concealing and revealing in its shadow play, like a silent siren song. Walt pushed himself up from the mattress and added more logs to the firebox, opening the damper fully. The fire seemed to leap with a roar: flaming hotter and brighter as it gorged itself on the increased oxygen. He watched to be sure it didn't smother, but his attention kept straying to Vic.

The sheet she wore had unwound enough to expose one bare shoulder and the pale arch of her neck; it rode high on her thighs, revealing the long, shapely muscles usually hidden beneath her jeans. He thought she must be cold from the way she'd pulled in on herself as she slept. He knelt down next to her, so close he could smell the scent of her still-damp hair, and tried to draw the edge of the sheet back around her shoulder. Most of its length was caught underneath her and Walt guessed trying to tug it free would probably wake her up. That seemed like a dangerous prospect.

He rose to check on their clothes instead, hoping that something was dry enough to use, but everything he touched was still distinctly wet. Through the window he could see the moon for the first time in days, hanging low and close to full in the sky. What it offered in the darkness seemed futile when he studied its vacant beauty, its borrowed light. It was light distilled by distance, left drained of strength and use. Walt felt a certain kinship in that.

On the other side of the glass, the wind harried the trees and fretted at the walls of the cabin like a dissatisfied child. Lost to its wild singing and his turbulent thoughts, he didn't stir until he heard Vic inhale deeply and sigh.

She rolled over and opened her eyes, pinning him in place as she blinked at him slowly, not quite awake. "It's cold."

Goosebumps rose along the back of his neck at the unconscious seduction of her drowsy voice. He nodded. "The wind's changed. It's blowing the cloud cover away."

"Oh." Slowly, she sat up and drew her legs beneath her, disentangling the sheet. "At least the rain's stopped."

"Why don't you take the blanket?" he suggested, watching her rub her arms against the chill.

"What about you?"

"I'm fine."

She rolled her eyes at him. "We should just share it. Body heat and all that, right?"

His breathing grew uneven.

"Right," he said weakly and swallowed hard. It was a sensible, practical, very bad idea to be so close to her. He wanted to hold her chastely while she slept. He wanted to pin her to the mattress and erase every thought she'd ever had that wasn't him.

Vic shifted to pull the blanket free from underneath her. When she sat back down on the bare mattress, she made a face. After a moment's thought she took the sheet from around her shoulders and unwound it until she could spread it out beneath her. It was wide enough that when she lay down again her upper body was protected from the vinyl.

"Good idea," Walt said with a small smile that she returned with a shrug.

"As long as I don't strangle myself in my sleep." She pulled the blanket up over herself and stretched out. "All right, come on, before I decide to just keep this all for me."

He breathed a nervous laugh before obeying. Vic lay with her back to him, which allowed him some privacy while he followed her example and rearranged his sheet. Gingerly he lifted the edge of the blanket and shuffled forward, leaving a good two inches between their bodies. Even then he could feel the heat coming off her, see the freckles that dotted her upper back. He imagined kissing her there, pressing his face against the nape of her neck and breathing her warm citrusy smell, licking the sweet little shell of her ear until she turned to him and—

She turned and gave him a skeptical look. "Seriously?"

For a wild, mad moment Walt was terrified she'd somehow read his thoughts.

"I'm pretty sure this whole thing works better if you're actually under the blanket. I don't have cooties, you know."

He was so relieved and embarrassed that he just shook his head mutely. Vic huffed at him and then lay down again, scooting backwards until she made contact with his slightly raised knees. She kept moving, folding herself into him so that he had no choice but to make room for her. The length of her spine curved into his chest and down to his abdomen. Then her backside made contact with his erection and she froze.

"Sorry." It came out in a choked whisper as he burned with mortification.

Vic inhaled. "It's fine. It's just a... reaction or whatever."

Was that what she really thought—that he'd be this way with anyone else? That every cell in his body wasn't alive and aching only for _her_?

"Vic, I—"

"Look, it's no big deal, Walt." Her impatience sounded a little strained. "I'm hungry, I'm tired, and I'd really like to not fucking freeze to death tonight. So your boner is way at the bottom of my list of concerns right now. Just get under the blanket already."

Together, they spread it over them as equally as they could. Walt took shallow breaths and tried to ignore the way her soft, warm flesh pressed against his groin, tried not to think about how it would feel to rock into her. His insides churned with desire and guilt and he didn't know where to put his free hand. In any direction he'd be touching some yielding, long-desired part of her. He hovered, indecisive, until Vic took his wrist with an exasperated sigh and pulled his arm over her waist.

With his fingers dangling close enough to her stomach to feel its gentle curve through the thin layer of fabric, Walt was paralyzed. The cacophony of his blood drowned out everything else, his veins and arteries swollen too full and turbulent as whitewater rapids.

He finally had to fill his lungs before he passed out, took a deep breath and held it for a moment before exhaling slowly.

A shiver went through Vic.

"Still cold?" he asked.

"No. I'm fine."

Her voice, higher and breathier than usual, penetrated his internal struggle. For the first time he considered the stiff way she was lying, the distance and degree from his mouth to her skin. Some devil of curiosity took hold of him and he leaned his head closer, close enough to be certain his warm breath brushed her neck. "You sure?"

Another shiver, a fainter response. "Uh huh."

In a way that might not have been intentional, her head tilted the tiniest bit further, shifting her hair and exposing her vulnerable nape. Hardly knowing what he was doing, Walt bent to follow and laid his lips there with the lightest touch. It wasn't a kiss, he told himself; his lips were just resting against her skin in a way that could have been accidental, that they could both dismiss as meaningless.

Vic's breath stuttered out. Then, on a short, sharp inhale, she arched her neck in a way that was entirely deliberate.

Light-headed, he kissed her gently and then again, then opened his mouth to taste her skin. The high, breathless sound she made poured over him and smothered all his aspirations to restraint.

He sucked urgent kisses over her neck and shoulder as her short nails dug into his hand on her stomach. The way her backside pressed against him was an exquisite torment and he splayed his palm low on her abdomen to bring her closer, pushing against her soft flesh. The gorgeous friction pulled an indecent sound from low in his throat.

Vic turned her head, mouth open, and his lips landed on her jaw, her cheek, until they finally found hers, just the corner, and then more as she turned over and into him, and then it was her whole hot mouth, her tongue. It was sloppy and awkward and he couldn't breathe but it didn't matter; he never wanted to breathe again if it meant he had to stop doing this.

She turned, she kept turning into him, and he reveled in her heat and softness. Somehow her sheet unwound so that her breasts were pressed against him, her thighs, and his dick was trapped against her soft, soft belly. Her small, strong hands were on his face and his chest and his back and his ass. He was trying to get out of his own sheet without separating his skin from any part of hers but it ended up tangled around his waist uncomfortably and he didn't care. She hitched one thigh over his hip and _oh god_ she was so hot and wet pressed up against him and it was more glorious than any fantasy he'd ever had.

He stopped thinking. His brain was nothing but silence. All that existed was this, right now, his body and her body and these all-consuming sensations rioting through him. She was the rush of hard rain on his flesh, the excoriating pulse that washed him clean of the grit of grief and dead layers, exposing tender new skin in her wake. He was left with nothing but nerve endings that sparked into flame, a flash fire despite all this water; they should have been giving off steam.

It was raw and desperate, happening too fast, but he couldn't slow down. He was melting and hurtling downhill like snow in spring, an ephemeral waterfall with his head swimming, overwhelmed by the white precision of her teeth, the gentle slopes of her breasts, her generous parted lips, her clutching, seeking hands, her trapping, trembling thighs. He wasn't thinking about protection or anything except her and the way she felt and the way she looked and the sounds she made. He watched it all on her face and she was so beautiful, so real and alive, and he couldn't hold on. He blazed like a falling star burning up in her atmosphere, catching fire, and her eyes never looked away.

Afterward, they were silent, but still touching. Walt memorized the inside of her wrist, the back of her knee, the beguiling dip and flare of the span from her waist to her hip. He fell asleep with Vic in his arms and he didn't dream. How could he? This, the dream, was already happening.

Sometime before dawn he woke again and found her watching him. It felt right to cup her cheek, for her thigh to slide against his, to meet her open mouth with his own. This time it was slower, more mindful. Words always seemed to fail him, so he tried to show her that he was sorry, that he loved her, by painting it on her skin with his hands and mouth. And when he was inside her with the truth of his feelings writ undeniable by his body, when her thighs and her arms were wrapped around him and holding him in place, he knew she understood.

In those moments he was absolutely sure of it.

. . .

.

The final time he woke the sun had risen.

Walt let out a muffled grunt as he turned onto his side, his stiff muscles protesting the motion. Something tickled his nose, gossamer soft, and began to flutter against his mouth with every breath. The sensation was erratic enough to nudge him all the way out of sleep. He opened his gritty eyes to the morning light and found himself nose to nose with Vic.

It was her hair that had tickled him, the long strands fanned out across the mattress close to his cheek. Walt touched it with tentative fingers, brushing the wayward tendrils away from his face. Every second of the night before came back to him in vivid, erotic detail, stealing his breath. Love and desire wove through him as twin flames: a blazing double helix of healing and renewal.

Not wanting to wake her, he slipped from under the blanket and tucked it around her before getting up. Aside from his coat and his jeans, all of his clothes were dry. It was a relief to put them on again, despite the clammy way the jeans clung to his skin.

When he stepped outside Walt was greeted by a sky of such innocent blue that it was hard to believe it could be the same one they'd lived under the last few days. Scudding puffballs of cloud dotted its breadth, and the distant bodies of birds moved across it like floating punctuation marks. This was a sky that knew nothing of rain.

While the service road was still rutted and muddy, it was much easier to navigate in sunlight. The Bronco appeared no worse off than when they'd left it the day before. Walt radioed in to the station and arranged their rescue, then walked the mile back to the cabin, foolishly eager to see Vic again.

She was up when he got back, already fully dressed. Just the sight of her filled him with a bright, expansive joy.

"Hey," he said, wanting to hug her or kiss her or drag her back down to the floor and do everything all over again. But she looked pale and solemn as she sat to pull on her socks and boots, her eyes rimmed red when they met his, so he only touched her arm and asked, "Are you okay?"

"Fine," she said. "Just didn't get much sleep."

"Yeah," he agreed with regret. Her nose looked a little red as well and he wondered if she might be getting sick. "You should go on home when we get back to town, get some rest."

"Are you sure?"

This was a woman who'd come to work the day after she'd been held captive and beaten into a Grade 2 concussion. Walt was certain now that she wasn't well. "Yep. Ruby said the Governor declared the county a disaster area last night. Suddenly we've got more help than we know what to do with."

"Okay, thanks." She offered him a slight smile. "We should probably clean up and get out of here."

"Right."

It took almost no time to get back to the Bronco. They didn't talk much on the walk, but the quiet, like the morning air, felt transformed. Ferg arrived, fussing like a mother hen, and Walt tried not to resent having to share Vic's company. She pounced on the thermos of coffee Ferg proffered and with the first mouthful made a noise so reminiscent of the night before that Walt had to walk around the tailgate to disguise his body's inconvenient response.

Freeing the Bronco turned out to be a messy but straightforward job with Ferg's help. The front end of the big truck was covered in mud, but it seemed to have suffered only superficial damage as far as Walt could tell. The prospect of more time alone with Vic made him more cheerful than was probably warranted, judging by the odd looks Ferg gave him before he left. Walt didn't care in the least.

Driving back to Durant with Vic, he let the simple, uncomplicated happiness of being with her saturate him. The horizon stretched out in every direction, open wide with possibility, and he felt buoyant with newfound hope.

They discussed work and practicalities for a few minutes before she grew silent. With her elbow propped against the door and her head cradled in one hand, she seemed to be studying the landscape from behind her sunglasses, but the way her left hand slid limply from her lap to the seat as he took a sharp curve made Walt fairly certain she'd fallen asleep. He indulged in more frequent glances than he usually allowed himself when she was awake, wishing selfishly that he could be the one to take her home and put her to bed, to make her soup and stroke her hair until she felt better. The wistful domestic daydream unspooled rosily in his mind as the Bronco ate up the miles towards home.

"Are you going to tell Donna?" Vic said out of nowhere, startling him.

A little embarrassed at the intimate drift of his thoughts, he cleared his throat. "About what?"

"About last night."

"Uh, I don't know." The question seemed like such a non sequitur to the morning that he had trouble coming up with a response. "It's over now, so."

"Sure, yeah. Survival fucks don't count, right?" Vic said tonelessly. "No harm, no foul. It was nothing."

Each word was a bullet. One by one they slammed into him at close range and tore ragged, gaping holes in his chest.

The world spiraled violently around him like a carnival ride running out of control. Walt thought he might throw up. Vic wasn't looking at him and it didn't count, it was nothing, and he couldn't make words come out of his mouth. A fist squeezed viciously around his heart. He felt as if it had actually risen so far up into his throat that he might asphyxiate on the uselessly pulsing lump of it.

_We fucked a couple times,_ he heard her say again. _That's all._

That's all.

Outside the station, Walt parked the Bronco and turned off the engine. He groped for something, anything to say. "Do you, uh, want to get some breakfast?"

"No, thanks. I'm just gonna go home and go to bed."

And of course the idea of Vic and bed together flooded him with visceral memories of the night, of early this morning, so that he was frozen, held fast in the twin grips of panic and desire.

Vic didn't seem to notice. She was already sliding from her seat and saying, "See you tomorrow." She was already shutting the door and walking away.

. . .

.

Walt didn't know how long he sat there.

A merciful layer of numbness finally settled over him and he made his way to the office on muscle memory alone. His ribs felt bruised. He climbed the stairs automatically and sat down at his desk with no idea why. He just didn't know what else to do.

In no time at all Ruby's brisk tread was headed down the hall.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded from the doorway.

He looked at her blankly, wondering the same thing.

"I can tell you've barely slept, and I'm sure you haven't eaten. You haven't even showered or changed your clothes. Go home, Walter. I don't want to see you again until tomorrow morning."

He grabbed hold of her stern instructions as though they were a lifeline, a map for the lost. "Okay," he agreed.

She huffed, but her expression gentled. "How's Vic?"

"I think she caught a cold. I sent her home."

Ruby regarded him with the affectionate exasperation of a woman used to wrangling recalcitrant sheriffs. "Which is where you should be."

The plain truth of her statement worked on him like an electric current through a fibrillating heart. "Yeah," he said as clarity dawned. "I should." He'd sent Vic home and that was where he should be. Everything—everyone—else was a needless complication. "I just have to make a call."

"If you're still here in ten minutes I will haul you out myself."

The mental image of her manhandling him onto the street brought a genuine smile to his face. "Thanks, Ruby."

With a satisfied nod, she left him to it.

. . .

.

Vic opened the front door looking tired and drawn and beautiful. "Walt?" she said, her brow furrowed.

"It wasn't nothing."

"What?"

"It wasn't nothing, Vic. Not to me." He stood on the doorstep with his exhalations forming little plumes of fog that curled and reached between them, as though even the breath in his lungs was trying to get to her.

Her lips moved but no sound came out. Then she seemed to really look at him. "Jesus, where's your coat?" Before he could respond she took a step back. "Get inside before you freeze solid."

Walt stepped into the house and they were standing together with the closed door as a barricade between them and the rest of the world. Both of them on the same side. It made him feel infinitesimally better.

There was a nest of blankets on the sofa and some balled up tissues, an empty bowl with a spoon in it. Vic's hair was dry and shiny; he wanted to touch it. The wide neck of her sweatshirt slipped down over one shoulder, where his mouth had been last night, where he now knew the exact texture of her skin. She turned from him, moving toward the kitchen, and panic seized him again. Even as he knew it was irrational, that she wasn't going anywhere, still the distance between them was increasing and he had to do something to make her stop.

"I lied," he blurted. She looked back at him in shock and the words just erupted from somewhere within him, spilling and tumbling out in an ugly flood. "You were right, it is your business, all of it, Vic, I want it to be. And I don't know why I said it. I don't know what I'm doing. You were— I thought you and Eamonn— and then you said—"

With a great effort, Walt managed to stem the geyser of broken speech. Vic was staring at him with wide, unreadable eyes, and he felt jittery and strange, standing on not-quite-solid ground.

"I couldn't handle it," he said with more composure, determined to finish this. "I acted like a jackass and I'm sorry. I'm sorry for the way I treated you. If you hate me then I can accept that, but don't think it was nothing. Please."

She walked over to him slowly, her expression grave, and he was so unnerved that when she reached up toward his face he was sure she was about to slap him. He was waiting for it.

But she didn't.

She laid her palm against his cheek, cool on his hot skin, and she rose up on her toes as she guided his head down. Still he was expecting the sting, the pain she had every right to inflict, but then her lips were pressed against his, as soft and giving as they'd been in the dark of the cabin. The kiss was fervent and slow, and when she pulled away he tried to follow. Her breath was warm against his cheek.

"I don't hate you, Walt. That's the problem."

The smile she gave him was bittersweet and he could only look at her, bewildered, as an ocean roar receded in his ears. He felt swollen and heavy, like a cloud full of rain that had forgotten how to fall. "Okay."

Vic licked the corner of her bottom lip and his eyes tracked the movement helplessly. "What about Donna?" she asked.

This time his answer came easily. "I talked to her. It's over." He shrugged at his own folly. "It never really got started."

Her expression hardened as she stepped back and crossed her arms. "Please don't insult my intelligence, Walt. I was the one who bagged her fucking bra into evidence."

His guts seized in a cold spasm. "No, we didn't— That's as far as it went."

"Only because you were interrupted."

He winced and rubbed at the back of his neck. "Yes," he admitted, shifting awkwardly. "I'm not, um, not proud of that."

Vic bit her lip, her focus on her feet. For the first time Walt noticed she was wearing fuzzy purple socks. Despite the gravity of the situation he wanted to smile, as charmed by their frivolity as he'd been by her pink toenails.

"Yeah," she said at last. He met her eyes again and her slight smile was rueful. "I'm familiar with that particular feeling myself."

For a long moment they looked at each other in shared, if uncomfortable, understanding. Walt felt the tension of the last few hours bleed from his muscles and had the sudden urge to simply sag to the floor in weariness.

"Have you slept at all?" Vic asked.

When he shook his head she took his hand and led him into the guest room. Her room, now. She let go of his hand and began pulling back the covers on the bed. Walt stood there uselessly, his mind a blank, featureless space, unable to summon an explanation for what was unfolding in front of him.

Vic turned to him, pushing her fallen hair away from her face. "You could at least take your boots off," she said. Then, more hesitantly, "Unless you don't want to stay?"

"No," he said quickly. "I mean, yes. I want to stay."

She gave him a tentative smile as she climbed into bed. His hands seemed to have forgotten how to perform even simple tasks, making him fumble his way through unbuckling his belt and getting his boots off. When he finally lowered himself to the mattress next to Vic, she pulled the quilt up and closed the space between them. The pillow smelled like her hair.

"You were gone when I woke up," she said in a quiet voice.

With icy abruptness Walt saw how the morning must have looked from her perspective. No wonder she'd thought last night had meant nothing to him; he hadn't given her any reason to think otherwise. "I'm sorry. I wanted to let you sleep. I didn't think..."

His voice gave out as she slid even closer, tucking her head under his chin. Her hand rested on his ribcage and her toes brushed his shins. "It's all right," she sighed against his throat. Stunned, he stretched one arm underneath the pillow and the other around her back, and felt Vic relax completely against him. It was a moment of such extraordinary sweetness that his eyes burned with grateful tears.

How, he wondered, could the punishment for his sins be to hold in his arms the very person he'd wounded? How could she want to be held? Walt had always understood atonement as an act of sacrifice. This loving absolution felt too much like an undeserved gift.

"Do you believe in redemption?" he asked softly.

"For a long time, a really long time, I don't think I did. But now... Yes, I do."

Walt trailed his fingers through the ends of her hair, watching the pale strands flare and fall. "I don't know what I believe in anymore," he told her honestly. "Except you, Vic. I believe in you."

She leaned her head back to look up at him with those eyes that saw so clearly. "I believe in you, too."

.

[END]

* * *

**notes:** thanks to ziparumpazoo, queen of outdoorsy shit, who found me pole creek cabin. it's not her fault that this is what i did with it.


End file.
